On-Site Measurement of Blood-Lead Concentrations Using Field-Portable Electroanalysis

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ashley, Kevin E. ; Jones RL ; Taylor L
• Description:
  The health effects of lead exposure are well documented. Lead can be inhaled into the lungs, absorbed through the skin, or ingested from contaminated hands, food, or cigarettes. Because air samples are not a surrogate for biological monitoring, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations mandate that employees' blood-lead levels be tested regularly. The portable ASV instrument was evaluated using worker populations, and observed results were withing the blood lead range of 1.4ug/dL to 42.0 ug/dL (see figures 1 and 2). The mean difference between the results of the field instrument and those of the laboratory analysis were less than 1 ug/dL. Give that treatment options would not be dramatically altered by a change in the blood-lead of <+_ug/dL, the mean difference between the two analytical methods holds very little clinical significance. It is unclear why the portable ASV instrument occasionally overestimates the blood-leads level by greater than +-11 ug/dL. In this data set, 9 out of 10 data points outside two standard deviations from the mean resulted in an overestimation of the true blood-lead level. Additional evaluation of the portable ASL device is underway. Occupational health professionals should evaluate the occurance of these values when determining if the ASV instrument is appropriate for thier applications. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Blood Dust Environmental Monitoring Hematologic Tests Lead Lead Poisoning Lung Diseases Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Air-samples Blood-tests Exposure-levels Lead-compounds Lead-fumes Lead-poisoning Lung-disorders Respirable-dust Sampling-equipment Sampling-methods
• ISSN:
  1047-322X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies ; DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20022301
• Citation:
  Appl Occup Environ Hyg 2002 Dec; 17(12):818-821
• Contact Point Address:
  CDC/NIOSH, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Mail Stop R-14, Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998, USA
• CAS Registry Number:
  Lead (CAS RN 7439-92-1)
• Editor(s):
  Ashley K
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• NORA Priority Area:
  Research Tools and Approaches: Exposure Assessment Methods
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• End Date:
  20040930
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:432811827af44653e743fa1c7d0b706dabe116c997a3c02388ab93d254992e4b9f5e9ca5d8e48012e6cdf6d56ce852f8df05d96114012296bd8c72ddf1993f10
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/199118/cdc_199118_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 296.39 KB ]